Chapter 2 The Unification Movement in Korea

  Pioneering Missions in Rural Korea

 After its official founding and subsequent move to Chungpa-dong in October 1955, the church began to actively hold meetings. The witnessing members, centering on the churches in Pusan and in Taegu, began to work in the surrounding cities, and pioneering missions in rural Korea were initiated. On July 20, 1957,  the church simultaneously dispatched witnessing members to 116 rural towns nationwide for a forty-day summer witnessing drive, and focused on arming the members with the principle by publishing the first edition of Wolli Haesol ("Explanation of the Principle") on August 15, 1957. Those who witnessed successfully at that time established local churches, and those who subsequently joined through these newly established churches in turn built other churches in other localities. Thus, the number of churches continued to increase to the extent that a deputy church leader would temporarily assume a leadership position until a permanent leader could be assigned by Headquarters.

At that time, due to the very difficult economic conditions following the Korean War, church buildings were dugout mud-wall huts. Most of these mud-hut churches were built by the church leaders themselves who braved cold weather and hunger, and whose sincerity and faith seemed to reach all the way up to heaven. God will remember their hidden efforts even though no one else may recognize them.

 Witnessing: Pioneering Songjeong-ri Church